evearael said:
The English copy of the Gospel of Judas is to be published Thursday.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/4882420.stm
Any thoughts?
First, we should recall that there was a faithful disciple named Judas in Chrisitan history
and Judas was a very common name. So I'm not convinced by the article that the Judas associated with the Gospel of Judas is the betrayer of Jesus.
We've already known about this Gospel:
http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/gospeljudas.html
EDIT: Silly me, I was assuming that the work had actually been written by a "Judas" in my first response. (!)
Here is an excellent article on the topic.
http://www.tertullian.org/rpearse/manuscripts/gospel_of_judas/#Radboud
(cf
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gospel_of_Judas)
Gospel of Judas not by Judas
The owner of the text, who only wants to make money from it, has carefully timed the publicity surrounding what is called the Gospel of Judas. That is the opinion of Prof. Hans van Oort, who specialises in Gnosticism, Manichaeism, Nag Hammadi and Augustine. He called a press conference on his own initiative, to counter "all the nonsense" being written at the moment about the Gospel of Judas; for example that the Vatican has an interest in the document's not being published.
Van Oort is attached to the Faculty of Theology of the University of Utrecht and is Professor of Christianity and Gnosticism at the Radboud University.
"It was known from ancient times that there had to be a Gospel of Judas. Irenaeus of Lyons spoke about it in his Adversus haereses (Against Heresies) in around 180 A.D., but his real source is Justin Martyr, and that takes us to around 140 A.D. I would guess that the Gospel of Judas would have to be dated at about 120 A.D." The original, at least. The papyri that appeared in the hands of shady dealers at the end of the last century (see photo) were probably a copy from the end of the fourth century. What is spectacular for science is that the Gospel of Judas has at last been found, or at least a part of it. Van Oort does not rule out that it involves the missing codex from the Nag Hammadi codices. What he does rule out is that Judas himself wrote it. "There is no reason whatsoever to assume that he did this. Nothing points to that."
The Gospel of Judas is a codex from the Gnostics, a movement that was denounced by the Church in the early days. "They set themselves against the established order, and thus also against the Creator. That's why Judas was their hero."
Van Oort is one of the few people who knows the contents of the Gospel of Judas, but does not want any trouble with its owner, the Swiss Maecenas Foundation." If I did, I would be killed." (KN)
